Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. [c] 2004. Marie Marshall "Confession is Good for the Soul" Churches, when they are empty of worshippers, always seem so big. I had thought that ours was empty, when I entered and walked over to the confessional boxes. I was conscious that my footsteps were echoing, and suddenly also that one or two people were indeed in the pews. They were supposed to be in private prayer, but I could feel their eyes on me - who is this person with a guilty secret to tell? It was with some relief therefore that I gained the boxes and slid quickly into one. There was little indication that the box on the other side of the grille was occupied, but I thought I could hear someone breathing. I settled myself. "Bless me, father, for I have sinned." There was a slight shuffling, then a long silence. "How long is it since your last confession?" said a voice, as if prompting me to go on. I recognised it, and sighed with relief. It was the soft baritone of Father Fletcher. I had always liked him. You would have thought that a man of his age would have been all hell fire and rosaries, but he was full of surprises, and could dole out common sense to young couples who came to see him about marriage difficulties. People who had come to see him scowling hand been seen to leave smiling. Yet he could be tough when necessary. "Gosh! I don't know - ages at any rate!" I replied. There was another pause. "You weren't brought up a Catholic, were you," It was a statement, rather than a question. "No. I married one, and converted. Sort of." "Sort of?" "Uh-huh." "Well, well." These were spoken like the words of a man settling down for a long session. "I imagine that as you are here, you have something that you want to talk to me about." "Yes." This wasn't going as it ought to have gone, and I almost thought he was pulling my leg. No, this was Father Fletcher, and that just wasn't his style. Nevertheless, he did seem a little amused. "Whenever you're ready. Maybe this is something you would prefer to leave for an informal chat." "No, no," I said quickly. I wanted to talk through this without having to look anyone in the eyes. I took a deep breath. "I have been having impure thoughts," I said. He made no reply, so I took another deep breath. "About other women." "Ah, that one," he said, and his reaction surprised me. "I've had that one before. Not for a while though. When did this start?" When did it start? Oh my! Who can say? Would I have to take Father Fletcher back with me to my teenage years, or could we deal in isolation with what has been happening to me lately? I can remember so many things from when I was a girl, but I am never sure precisely when things happened. Everything gets telescoped together, as though I woke up one morning to find myself in puberty, and he next morning I went out and had sex! That's how it seems now, though I am sure that the gaps in my life were longer than that - they must have been! My generation were the younger sisters of the Mohair Girls, from the brief interlude when the word Mod was no longer used, and while the word Skinhead was still a term of abuse. We copied their chic, spending all our pocket money on Trevira min-skirts and Ben Sherman shirts to be seen out-and-about in; even for school we tried to persuade our mums that a shirt with a button-down collar would be ok for wearing with our uniform, and that really the school didn't care about the shortness of our skirts! We had our hair cropped and layered, and our ears pierced with a single stud, which we could slip off and replace with a dangly loop for stepping out! All to the despair of our mums, of course. It seemed to me that no one gave a hang about the legal age of consent. Some girls seemed to have been dating boys ever since they had figures. Again, this might just be an illusion, because now I think about it, I myself was not quite so quick off the mark. At the time, I didn't know quite why. A few boys had asked me out, but I had said no. There didn't seem to be anything strange about this, I told myself; it was simply that I didn't fancy those particular boys. But what boys did I fancy? I didn't seem to know, and it didn't really worry me. I had a school-friend called Nuala. One day I began to think, "Wow, she is pretty!" I told myself that this was because she looked like a boy. Specifically she looked like one particular boy, and only slightly at that. She bore a resemblance to a well-known child actor who, yes, was very cute. However, she was slighter and prettier than he was, and what's more she was totally feminine. And although at the time I didn't like to admit it to myself, I can see that it was the feminine things about her looks that I liked, such as her petite figure, her bust, her long, dark hair, and so on. I began to hang around with her, just so that I could be with her, and she didn't seem to mind this at all. One day I was at her house after school. I don't know why I didn't go somewhere and sit down, but for some reason I stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall. Nuala bustled to and fro, coming and going along the passage. I watched her, and she smiled back at me on every journey. Then suddenly, as she was passing me, she darted quickly up to me and kissed me - "Mwah" - like that, very quickly, on the lips. The next time she passed - "Mwah" - again, and all the time smiling! The time after that, I grabbed hold of her, and stopped her. She put her arms round my waist, and snuggled to me. We kissed. We kissed with more enthusiasm than precision, but I can remember that it was lovely! She was lovely. We could have moved into the lounge and sat down, or we could have even gone into her bedroom as there was no one else at home. Instead we just stood there, kissing, as if to move would have meant that we would have to stop, and perhaps say that it had never happened. At some point we did say "I love you" to each other - we were teenagers after all, and as we all knew very well, teenagers invented love. Sex happened a day later. It was so exciting, and I couldn't get enough; so I was round at her house after school every afternoon! Almost by accident we found out about the other girls like us at school. It was a kind of underground movement - the girls who dated girls. I had the impression that it was something that had already been under way at the school, and had been started by older girls, but the generality of this group seemed to be around our age. We were never part of the feminist movement, and never officially "came out". Secrecy seemed to add to the fun. What we did never involved "butchism", by which I mean none of our number tried to look or act like one of the boiler-suit brigade. Later there was a small "out" scene at our school, but very few people from the underground were also part of that, and vice versa. Basically we liked girls, and we liked girls who liked girls, so to us it seemed nonsensical to dress or act as anything other than girls! I did love Nuala, and she was a sweetheart, a gold-plated sweetheart. But I was young and silly. I became sex-mad, and used to go with whomever was available out of our group. When Nuala found out that not only was I two-timing her, but was two-timing the girl with whom I was two-timing her, she finished with me. I pretended it didn't matter - after all, I was getting loads of sex! This lasted pretty much throughout school and college. I was downright insatiable, and I felt like I was having a great time. Things only began to go wrong for me when I got close to my mid-twenties. I wondered what I was actually going to do with my life. I do not believe I had ever outgrown an adolescent attitude to sex and love. For me, the lesbian thing was about having sex with pretty girls; it was about the heady, teenage experience of falling madly in love, as though it had only just been invented. I never envisaged myself becoming old alongside an aging female companion. I still can't. Somewhere at that time I stopped having lesbian sex. It seemed to fizzle out. My last affair was a disaster. I took up with a very sexy woman of 40, who said to me, "Love me for one year, and then be my friend." We had two weeks of extremely good sex, and then she dumped me! It also struck me at about this time that lesbian sex had, for some time, been too intense for me. My orgasm would leave me physically and emotionally drained, sometimes in tears. Maybe I was changing. By this time I had also had some boyfriends. Nothing too heavy, but I had always got on with males as friends, and had dated a few of my male friends. It was different, of course. It felt very different. Sometimes it didn't feel quite right, but sometimes it felt pleasant. It was actually less intense than going with a girl, and I didn't mind that. The young men I had relationships with were rather gentle, perhaps almost a little feminine - I don't mean effeminate, but I'm not sure how to define what it was they had. I didn't mind not having an orgasm - in fact that side of it was quite restful! It was a whole different thing from going with girls. It was in a whole different box - does that make sense? If I could, I would come up with a different word to use, other than "sex", or two different words altogether, maybe something like "alpha" for girls and "beta" for men. My best friend - ever! - was a man I had come to know. I could talk to him about my sexuality, and about my love-life. If it came to that, he could have talked to me about his, but I can't remember him ever having done so. Our friendship must have been one way in that respect. One day, when I had been crying on his shoulder, he asked me what I really wanted out of life. I stopped and thought about it. Children. I wanted to have babies, and to bring up children. This was very, very strong in me, a longing so intense. In those days it was not unknown for gay couples to adopt and co-parent, and there was already talk of sperm-donors, in-vitro fertilisation and such like. But as I said, being in love with youthful, pretty women was what my lesbian sexuality was all about, and no way could I have aged alongside an ageing, female co-parent. Besides, I always felt that children needed fathers, and - my more radical college friends despised this attitude in me - that any way of getting children other than straightforward human biology was somehow cheating! When I had explained this to my best friend, he did something which surprised me. In a way, all this time later, it still surprises me. He asked me to marry him. All of this was going through my head, as I sat in the confessional. I had been saying something to Father Fletcher - I don't know what - but I seemed to have dried up. There had been a pause. "You're married, aren't you," said the priest, and again it was more of a statement than a question. "How are relations between you and your husband?" "They're very good," I said. How could they be anything else? He always was, and always will be, my very best friend. When he asked me to marry him, I didn't say, "No, don't be silly, I'm a lesbian." Instead I gave it a lot of thought. The way I felt meant that I have never really known what to call my sexuality since. Whatever may be uppermost at any time, be it the longing for lesbian sex, the maternal instinct, or whatever, I always have the feeling that it was fraught with problems. I can't call myself bisexual, because even that is too definite, and implies that one is actually comfortable with a partner of either sex. I don't think comfortable would express my state, whenever in my life a snapshot was taken. But what did he have to offer me? The chance to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. The biological route to children, and a future father for them. Not least of all, he loved me. He had never told me before, not wanting to complicate our friendship, nor to make me feel he was merely turned on by my sexuality the way that many men are; but he had loved me for a long time, and said he could not imagine loving anyone else. Leaving it at that, it sounded more than many married couples had! It seemed that he was a lid for this particular pot. I said yes. Well, I said yes with a proviso. It made sense for us to see if we were sexually compatible. My experience of men was scanty. By and large they did very little for me. My friend and I had always cuddled a lot, and shown each other a great deal of affection. Could that be extended to something much more intimate. We both agreed that if I found myself shutting my eyes and imagining that I was, somehow, with a girl, then it simply wasn't going to work. I had to be aware precisely who it was that was there with me. The kisses were his. The caresses were his. The penetration was his. To this day I can't explain how come it worked. In fact, when we were actually making my two sons, it was wonderfully fulfilling. He never expected more than this, and when we were eventually four, he never complained when our relationship changed. He loved me, and he knew I loved him in my own way. "They're very good," I repeated. "My husband is the best. We walk along holding hands, much to the embarrassment of my teenage boys. I tuck my arm through his when we share an umbrella. When one of us is upset, the other one will offer a cuddle, and it's always accepted. He loves me. I love him. He's my best friend, ever." "I see. Thank you," said Father Fletcher. I knew that he had taken note of what wasn't mentioned, as well as what was. And I knew that he had enough experience of listening to people's voices to know that I was not lying to him. After all this time my best friend and I were inseparable, happily growing older together, happily parenting two lively, teenage boys, happily in partnership. Twenty years have passed since we got married - almost twenty years to the day, as it happens. We have not had sex since my second boy was born. If this has hurt my husband, he hasn't complained. He hasn't complained that aches and pains have hampered my mobility, and that in my late forties I have grown stout, and that my face has lost the cuteness it had when I was young. He hasn't complained that whatever I buy to wear, I am never anything other than a frumpy old trout, and that I usually settle for a safe combination of a white blouse, and a long, pleated, black skirt. And flat shoes - I would fall off high heels and cripple myself! Almost every day he reminds me that he loves me. I say the same to him, and I mean it - but at the same time I wonder what I mean by it. About eighteen months ago, on a hot summer day, my eldest boy brought a girl home - a young woman I should say. She was beautiful, tall, blonde, just like they all seem to be these days. She and my son had planned to treat the younger children of the neighbourhood to a session with our garden hose, and she borrowed my bedroom to change into her swimsuit. As she went outside, she flitted past me, giving me a pheromone blast from her hair. I felt as though my throat had been gripped by steel fingers, and I seemed to miss a breath and a heartbeat. A familiar feeling, suppressed for many years, came over me. When I went into my bedroom, I saw her clothes lying in a heap. I picked them up, telling myself that I was simply putting them tidy for her. I did fold them, but first I held each garment to my face. They were still warm. Those that had been closest to her skin smelled wonderful. I held her bra and panties for several long minutes. The scent from her panties intoxicated me - how long had it been since I had known the musk of girlhood with such intimacy? I kissed the inside of her bra, and the inside of her panties - I know it was silly of me, wanting her to walk home with a kiss from me as close to her preciousness as possible - before putting them neatly on the top of the pile of clothes. Then I sat on the edge of the bed, and cried. I knew that the thing which I had happily suppressed for many years was coming to the surface of my life again. Since then I have wondered how I can be gentle to myself and gentle to my husband. I don't want to leave him - how could I do that to my best friend, in any case? Even if I did, where is the golden, young girl who would like to have sex with this frumpy old trout? "Get real!" I tell myself. But now, everywhere I go, I see women and girls that I would love to be close to. The other day, as I was leaving work, a friend of my boss's wife came to the door. She was tall, blonde, fragrant, and stylish. I wanted her and hated her! Today I went to the surgery, to see about my aches and pains; I was seen by a locum, a round-faced little Chinese woman, with a bad complexion and glasses. But her eyes were kind and lively, her mouth small, pink, and kissy. She gave me a check-up which involved my lying on the bunk while she examined my chest and belly. She slipped one warm hand inside the waistband of my plain Marks and Spencer knickers. She did it in an entirely professional way, but oh how I longed for her to slip it further down, to caress me, to make me high on sex again! That's how it is. There is only one hand that makes that journey these days. My own. "So, what do you do about these thoughts?" asked Father Fletcher. "Nothing," I said. "Well, nothing much. I'm gentle to myself - let's say that." "Do you want to go on in that way?" "No. Yes. I don't know." "That's actually the best answer," he said, and I could hear a chuckle in his voice. "I suppose you're expecting a few 'paters' or 'aves', then?" "Mmm," a non-committal reply from me! The priest gave a little sigh. "Look, as far as I can tell, from what you've said, this is largely in your imagination, yes? Well, when one of these thoughts surfaces in your imagination, why not imagine coming in here to talk to me? Why not make that your penance?" "Mmm. Thank you, Father." Another sigh. "Ego te absolvo. There are many ways of being gentle to yourself. Remember that." "Yes, Father. Thank you, Father." Walking back through an almost-empty church, it was hard to understand that the words spoken in the confessional had not echoed throughout the building, much less throughout the whole of the town. The solitary worshippers did not crowd round the box to eavesdrop, and scuttle back to their pews when they heard me get up. Their heads were down, they were praying, not observing me out of the corner of their eyes. The statues were just statues, not plaster spies. What had feelings of guilt got to do with anything? Why had I come here, to give no more than a few grains of information to Father Fletcher? Did he realise I held back more than I gave? They say that confession is good for the soul. If that is true, why did I stand blinking in the sunlight, not knowing whether to turn right or left?